


Dancing on the Less Green Grass

by Squild_child



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Backstory, Blood and Injury, Character Study, Me? Self Projecting? Who?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 01:50:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16822717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squild_child/pseuds/Squild_child
Summary: Everyone who lives at Amnesty Lodge must live with the fact that they’ve been exiled. It’s much harder than never entering Sylvain again, one must accept what they have done, accept that they have friends and family that they will never see again, and accept the fact that they must rebuild a life for themselves. For Dani this is a much longer and harder process than she could’ve ever thought.[In which we explore some of Dani’s most defining moments. Backstory and present day. Some are good, and some she'd much rather forget.]





	Dancing on the Less Green Grass

The air was knocked out of her lungs as she was tossed into the soft dirt on the other side of the gate. The sound of her brother being tossed the same way was almost completely masked by the sound of her heartbeat pounding in her own ears as she wheezed, gasping for breath.

“ _So, this is how it ends_ ,” she thought, letting her face fall onto the ground, leaving a good splattering of mud. As she lay there she wondered if the chill she felt through her body was from the cold April rain hammering against her skin, or if it was from the things she had done to deserve a fate as terrible as this.

She looked over to her twin, expecting him to be reminiscing about their lost life in Sylvain just like her, but instead he was pushing himself back up to his feet. “You can’t do this to us!” He screamed, cleaning some of the mud that splashed a little too close to his eyes. Lightning sparked in the sky as she watched him run towards the stone arch, intending to bodycheck and run past the guard blocking it. He ran with full confidence, as if he actually had the strength to push past and as if pushing past would magically solve all their problems and they would no longer be exiled. Unfortunately, neither of these were true. She watched as her brother was pushed backward yet again, this time landing in the mud, back first.

Before she could even open her mouth to remark at his stupidity, he was up again. He yelled again as he barrelled towards the guard, fists ready. This time the guard didn’t push him back, he stood strong and emotionless as her brother did everything in his power to try and push past. “We didn’t do that shit to the crystal!” His voice waved, starting to grow hoarse from the yelling but it didn’t deter his spirit. He pounded his fists against the guard’s chest as he continued to yell, “We have jobs! We have a family! We have important roles in Sylvain! Let us back in!”

Finally, she pushed herself up from the dirt. Her head was pounding and all she wanted to do was lay back down. But she couldn’t let this happen, at least not without a fight. She ran up the guard and began mirroring her brother, pushing at him as hard as she could, but the only tangible thoughts she was able to cry were “please,” and “I’m sorry.”

No matter how hard they pushed, how loud they cried or how much they begged their situation did not change, the guard didn’t budge. It felt like hours, it felt like days, but in reality it was only a few minutes before the guard finally decided he had had enough. He placed one hand on her forehead, the other matching on her twin’s, and he pushed them both backward into the dirt again. And before either of them could pick themselves up, the gate flashed, the guard stepped back into Sylvain and disappeared as he closed the gate. Just like that, it was over. It was all over.

Taking a moment to recollect she brushed the blonde hair out of her face that had become stuck to her forehead with a combination of rain, mud, and sweat. She wiped her nose and inspected her hand while lighting flashed, temporarily lighting up a mixture of mud and blood, confirming her suspicions of receiving a bloody nose in her downfall.

“So,” her voice quivered as she spoke, hopefully, something her twin didn’t pick up on. “What the fuck do we do now?”

A moment passed as thunder boomed through the sky, and then another moment, completely silent other than the rain hammering against the ground.

“Hello? Carson?—Holy shit.” Turning to where her twin fell she could now see why he was being so uncharacteristically quiet.

It was almost too hard to see him due to the pouring rain. The guard had pushed him much further back than her. He laid motionless in the mud, curled up and gripping the back of his head in pain.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” She rushed over to him, losing her traction in the mud several times before kneeling down next to him. “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Carson, wake up!” She grabbed his shoulder and begun to shake him awake. Out of the corner of her eye she could a rock sticking out from the mud, in the direct line from where he was pushed. Fuck that could not be good.

Thankfully, he opened his eyes, but to her dismay they weren’t as bright as Sylvin eyes should be. But still he smiled, “Don’t worry Dani, I’m good.”  
She couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity, “You are absolutely NOT good.” She brushed the hair out of his eyes, wet with mud, blonde and sticking to his face as much as possible. It matched her’s almost perfectly. They were twins after all. She scowled as she looked at his eyes a little more, now that she could see them a bit more clearly. He was clearly trying to look back at her but instead both were looking slightly different directions, his eyes were glassy and most worrying of all, one pupil was noticeably larger than the other.

“Fuck,” she mumbled rising back to standing and offering her brother a hand. “We gotta get you some help.”  
He took her hand and attempted to stand, only to crumple back down. He was clearly weak.

She cursed again as she hooked one arm under his shoulders, struggling to lift him up slightly and setting him up to use her for support. Seeing her having difficultly he laughed just a little.  
“I think it’s a little obvious I’m not the strong twin,” she huffed.

With some effort she was able to get them to a situation where they were mobile. She was half carrying, half supporting her brother’s weight. It was all very tiring and with both of them already weak who knew how long they could last. Not that that really mattered, they didn’t really have a direction they could go other than away from here.

So they started away from Sylvain.

It was the first moment of rest since their announcement of being exiled, they could finally think, they could finally process it. The more they thought about it the worse it got. Luckily with the rain, both of them could just pretend the water of their faces had just fallen from the sky, rather than tears.

After some wandering in the near pitch black of night the dark tree-line was broken up by a single beam of light. A flashlight.

“Shit,” she hissed. They needed help, but a very specify kind of help. If they were found by a human that would be the death of them both. And from this distance there was no knowing whether the light was coming from Sylph or Human, help or death. They couldn’t risk it. They couldn’t be seen by them like this, they’d have to hide. Could they even hide with their current physical situation?

“Hello!?” A voice called out, barely audible above the rainfall “I heard some commotion out here in the woods!”

Before she could make a game plan on how to escape her brother called out in return, “Hello?” His voice was a little slurred as he talked, but she didn’t even notice it with the adrenaline running through her veins.

“What the fuck are you doing?” She hissed at him, “you’re an idiot!”

A tall, broad-shouldered figure came into view from between the trees, using the light of their flashlight to scan the area in front of them. “Don’t worry I’m here to help!”  
She was running out of time to hide. She scanned her brother’s face for a second. The colour was draining more and more from his face by the second, and the trickle of blood down the back of his neck did nothing more but confirm the terrible suspicion of his head being smashed on that rock. They really were desperate for help. Maybe even desperate enough to trust another human. She still didn’t know whether the figure was Sylph or Human but at this point, she was willing to take the chance.

Just as she made the decision she found herself squinting her eyes at the sudden light, and the two of them were caught in the view of the flashlight.

“You’re Sylphs aren’t you?” The figure asked, coming closer.

Not knowing what else to do and too scared to speak she nodded.

“Don’t worry, I am too.”

She and her twin let out the collective breath neither of them knew they were holding. At this point her eyes had adjusted to the light and she could see who they were speaking with more clearly. He was a large, burly man with a thick beard and a kind smile.

“There’s a place you can stay just up the hill from here a bit. Don’t worry, it’s safe. Especially for folks like us.”

Almost as if caused by the promise of safety, after withstanding all he could take, her twin slipped out of her grasp and crumpled to the ground, unconscious.


End file.
